Into the Rush
by Bekah26
Summary: a revamping of an old idea, with a new take. Ianto Jones has always known that he is more then just Torchwood's teaboy. He just doesn't know what that is.
1. Chapter 1

Where did no other fic go? Well this is it-just, different!

It took me awhile to get this out, which I'll blame on life and whatnot, but also on season 2 Fragments. It totally screwed my mind, continuity wise: I was like, should I start there, or start season 1 and go along. It was crazy!

So, this will follow production time: season 1 first, the rest to follow.

Oh, and the plot bunny (you'all know which one! Don't worry: this is just a revamping) is still in effect; it'll just take a little time to get there. Oh, and it could be canon! I'll give proof of this next time.

Important: Torchwood does not belong to me, it's Davies and the BBC, and I'm getting nothing by perverse enjoyment from this. Go me!

**Into the Rush**

* * *

**Prologue**

Ianto always knew he had been different.

The world had always been a different place for him, a place full of beauty and enchantment. For him the colors burned brighter, the sounds were more resonant and clear, and the people more vivid and beautiful. He liked the way the stars sung to him and called him by name, and the way the trees and flowers moved to welcome him and granted him shelter and warmth. He liked watching the people, he liked the way the layers of emotion and thought and intent pulsed around them, searing the air with a silent flame that called to him, and embraced him. He liked they way that the strands of time and dreams seemed to dance around him in patterns of song, how the notes were ever-changing, and how they seemed to silence when he sung their song. These were the things he loved and they were the things that loved him. The universe danced for him and he was happy.

The happiness hadn't lasted long, for as he grew, he noticed that he was the only one shown these things, the only one who understood. The other children laughed and jeered when he spoke of what he saw and knew to be true. At the time he didn't understand why they taunted and hurt him; he was too young to understand that the truth is not always welcome. He didn't yet understand that they were unable to see what he could, he didn't know that their minds could never comprehend what his could. He soon realized that he alone knew these things.

No, that wasn't quite true; his mother knew, as she was kin to him, and they sheltered each other from the unkindness of man. In family he knew that he had been blessed, as he had a mother who _knew_ him and a father who accepted and loved his wife and son regardless of their oddities. His mother told him stories, and listened to his in return; his father marveled at his mind and praised his gifts of insight and imagination.

Ianto learned early that the universe always demands a price for its gifts.

He knew that it was this knowledge, this strange and worldly knowledge, that eventually killed his mother. Over time it had driven her away from the world and into the sanatorium, and then into death. He remembered watching her slowly pull into her own mind, leaving he and his father pleading with her to stay. On the final day of her life, she turned her fathomless gaze to him and said:

"Never love. Love is the great betrayer, and love will always bring death to you."

Despite his pleas her thread had broken and snapped, and half a year later his father's followed. He was alone in the world, with none to speak to, and none who would understand.

And so he grew silent and kept his words to himself, guarding his soul against the world, ever quiet and ever watchful.

Ianto had always known that human did not always mean humanity.

Just out of school he had been bundled up and carried away to the tower of glass and steel and intention, and invited to join their distinguished ranks of Torchwood. Yvonne Hartman was a welcoming woman with cold eyes that were as watchful as his own, and while he smiled, he also feared. But he knew and had always known, that this was where he was meant to be and fitted himself into the ranks without difficulty. He made friends and bonded with his co-workers, accepting invitations and giving them, to parties and clubs and rugby matches. He met a girl, Lisa, who he came to like and who came to like him, and they were happy. He trusted her as best he could and was content in what he had. As the year passed, he realized he was happy.

A voice inside whispered warnings.

Against an unspoken regulation he kept a diary of thoughts, opinions, and details of the tower and what happened there. Over time he noticed his insights weaving a darker and dangerous pattern, and smelled the broken ozone of an unsealed hole, and yet he could not speak, could not let them know. The strands of his life had begun to fray under the weight of the gathering storm.

Lisa knew of his fears, but assured him of the safety of the tower, and in her he saw the arrogance of man, assured of their greatness that they feared nothing. He wanted to press his knowledge upon her, his certainty of doom, yet he had begun to see the same coldness growing in her eyes that existed in Hartman's, and so he waited and watched. Until one day he had been in the archives, buried in artifacts and histories, when the universe screamed and was torn asunder.

Ianto had been torn apart with it.

Afterwards, clawing his way back to consciousness and piecing himself together, he knew that the world he knew was gone.

For the first time he cursed his knowledge, as lives of his friends no longer burned, their deaths coming to him in flashes of insight that left him weeping on the archive floor. And then he heard Lisa's cries, begging him to come to her, to help her, and his bleeding soul obeyed. He would save one life, he swore; he would save just one. He had found her, alone and screaming, and had carried her as best he could away from the reek of death and despair, with the screams still echoing in the air, the promise tattooed onto his very being.

In his state he did not feel her desires twist his own to serves hers. He did not feel the pulsing beat of the universe that screamed WRONG at him. He did not see how time shifted and rearranged, and how the words of his mother would become truth.

Ianto would die twice for love.

_He_ would walk away only once.

* * *

I just got my season 1 Torchwood, and I love in the deleted scenes, disc one, where Tosh brings Ianto a coffee, and the combination of both her and his failed attempts at connections really stands out. Here is a lonely Tosh, and here is a torn Ianto (as we know what's in the basement :) Oh, I love him!

It got me thinking that Ianto hides things so well (and he angst so beautifully) that I wanted to torment him with secrets and lies and angst!


	2. Chemicals React

**Into the Rush**

finally, here is the scond bit and it got totaly away from me. I planned a light-hearted romp in crackness, and it turned into a dark spiral of myth.

I blame DW ep Turn Left.

oh, slash ahead; not much, but its there.

* * *

Chemicals react

_It was surrounded by thick life that parted as he passed, his bare feet tickled by the plants and grass, and he pushed through the trees to enter into a broken hall._

_He had been here before, though the memory of how was lost, and he walked in wonder through ancient walls of stone, even though before him they shifted and breathed and became new again. He came upon a wide tapestry that depicted a war, a great war, and how it raged across all matter and changed fate; in it he saw the fall of planets and races, most burning, some falling into the darkness that swept over time, with a small blue speck as the only survivor. He followed the events, fingers following the path of the blue, until it blended into what he knew, and the scene changed to the fall of the ivory tower. He passed by quickly, and from there he found what had drawn him here._

_It was small, compared to the grand scale of piece, but it seemed to shine brighter then the whole, and wondered if it was because it was special, or if it was only because it was made for him. It was a small kingdom, hidden and secretive, but with seeing eyes he traced the familiar design, and on closer inspection he was able to pull apart the individual strands that made up the whole. _

_Jack's thread stretched out towards forever, and Ianto traced his eyes down the golden strand and could not see its end. It twisted and wound itself around so many others, forming a tapestry unto itself, and Ianto marvelled at the sheer number of lives his Captain would touch. His own thread, a midnight blue that glittered like a star-filled sky, was a compliment to Jack's for longer than Ianto cared to see. He wasn't ready to accept the implications._

_Gwen's was vibrant and frayed, as if time would wear the strand down until it was near breaking, but after the peak, it would strengthen and remain until its natural conclusion. It promised her a long life, and hardships, but joy as well, and it had latched onto Rhys's with a vengeance and didn't let go until the end. Despite her infidelities, Ianto always knew the two of them belonged together._

_Tosh's thread was not as long as the others, but it was strong, and Ianto knew that she would not just fade out, but go down strong till the very end. He ran hands over the lavender strand, soft and smooth like the best weaved cotton or the finest silk, and was wistful. Besides Jack, it was she that he loved most of all, ever since she had dared to bring him that cup of coffee when he should have been hating them all, she had had his heart; Jack was the one who had his soul._

_Owen's thread was frighteningly short._

_Ianto ran his hand over where they all connected, where they bound and strengthened each other, and knew that Torchwood Three was always meant to come together. _

_He heard a noise and turned, just missing a fleeing shape, and he moved to follow it as it moved down the corridor. It became a chase, as it ran and he followed, though he never overtook it. Flashes of different images on the walls drew his gaze as he moved past them, entering his mind and leaving just as quickly: images of metal monsters, steel drones, beasts from the deep, and the worst of humanity. Faces followed, depictions of the men that had dared to try to tame time, who tried to thwart destiny only to be driven mad by what they encountered as a result. Each image came faster and faster until it was a constant blur in his eye, though one face began to stand out from the rest. So lost in this that he didn't notice when he came to a set of doors, and still moving at full speed, he crashed through them to the other side, ending up in a heap on the floor._

_He lay on the ground, his body aching, his clothing sticky heavily to his skin with sweat. Each gasp echoed hollowly in the room, and gathering himself, he struggled to rise. The floor beneath him had changed, no longer cold stone, but a warm clear marble that pulsed with energy; the air on the room crackled with it. It reminded him of the rift, the color and taste that builds in the air just before a spike, or a drop, or a tear. The walls around were made of glass, and he would have called them mirrors, save for that the images kept changing, save one._

_He saw himself but it wasn't him, and yet he knew it was. The image before him had the same dark curls, same moon pale skin, and the same blue eyes, even though they were framed in a female body. He couldn't move, the twin set of eyes locked on each other, until the movement behind her caught his eye, and he knew that it was the shape he had initially been following. At first he thought that it was just his double's shadow, until it rose up, becoming a distinct shape unto itself. The shape behind her stepped away and began to push its way out from the mirror, and the burn of energy in the air grew, as if the world was screaming. _

_He felt as if he couldn't trust his eyes._

_It looked like another girl, young, petite, with painful eyes and repressed energy, and yet it didn't, for at times he could have sworn that it was a wolf._

_But he knew that it was, and wasn't, entirely human._

_He was frozen as it approached, as it stopped before him, and leaned its head down to rest against his own. The girl in the mirror had moved as well, and stood beside it, one hand resting on its arm. _

"_I made a mistake," it said. "I made a mistake and it all went wrong. I'm sorry." _

_Each mirror around him began to flicker and die out, overcome by darkness. He fell back and before the last mirror blanked, he saw himself it in as he truly was._

_Blue met blue as she stared back, and all of time spun around her, fracturing and falling away like shards of glass._

_Like a rain of black feathers._

_She opened her mouth and screamed._

Ianto.

Ianto?

IANTO!

"Jack?" He asked, wiping the sweat from his face with a trembling hand.

"Hey," was the soft answer as a kiss was pressed into his skin, "that was a bad one."

Ianto lay on his back, Jack a steady warmth at his side, and he gazed up at the ceiling half in apprehension, and half with confusion. It had been so real, he remembered the smell of the earth and the trees, the feel of cold stone under his feet, and the vivid images that still danced before his eyes even though they had begun to face. They were in Jack's bed in the Hub, Ianto reminded himself, and he could make out the telling hum of the mainframe around them. He pulled himself out of Jack's grip (really, for a man who claimed to be from the liberal 51st century, he was awfully clingy in bed) and with a soft "be right back" he made his way into Jack's private bathroom. The cold water helped to ground him more in this reality, and as he shook the drops from his face, he looked into the small wall mirror.

And froze, for she looked back. And behind her, written on the mirror's wall but not on Jack's were these words:

The wolf is running for the crow is in flight.

* * *

hope you enjoyed it, don't worry if its confusing as I hope to get that all played out as the chapters go. But if you can't wait, let me know, and I'll give hints.

Maybe.

Review and I may give in.


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